How Obama stumbled on healthcare

Take it away, WSJ.

Basically, if Obama hadn't taken the politically convenient route of lambasting McCain during the campaign for taking the economically sound position of repealing the benefits tax exclusion, and hadn't insisted the public option was a good idea, and had been more insistent early in the legislative process that the bill bend the cost curve down, we could be passing some positive reforms.

Instead we get more weeks of uncertainty and the possibility that the final bill will become even worse as the Dem leadership scrambles for ways to buy off increasingly reluctant blue dog districts with more handouts.

Keith Hennessey has more analysis.